India and the UK have agreed to make further progress on the ongoing negotiations for a free trade agreement (FTA) and also to swiftly organise the next bilateral Economic and Financial Dialogue soon, the British government has said.
India has recently concluded the seventh round of talks with the UK.
At the conclusion of UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt\u2019s India visit for the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting, held under India\u2019s 2023 Presidency, the UK\u2019s Treasury department said the finance minister held talks with Indian counterpart Nirmala Sitharaman with a focus on deepening bilateral economic and financial ties. \u201cAt a meeting with Indian Finance Minister Sitharaman, both sides agreed to make further progress on the UK-India Free Trade Agreement and deepen bilateral economic and financial ties,\u201d the Treasury department said in a statement on Saturday.
\u201cThey agreed to make swift progress on setting up the next UK-India Economic and Financial Dialogue,\u201d it said. Hunt, on his first international visit as UK Chancellor, also met with business leaders in Bengaluru and visited the offices of tech multinational Wipro which employs over 4,000 people in the UK. \u201cMeeting fellow Finance Ministers face to face is an excellent opportunity to make real progress on the key global economic issues of our time,\u201d said Hunt.
\u201cI first visited India 38 years ago, and it\u2019s been fascinating to see how much the country has changed in this time \u2013 there are positive lessons to be learnt from their successful rapid development. \u201cIt\u2019s been great to hear from Indian technology business leaders here in Bengaluru how they are pushing the country\u2019s economy forward, and I look forward to further collaboration between India and the UK as we continue to trade and create jobs \u2013 delivering on the government\u2019s plan to grow the economy,\u201d he said. The Chancellor, alongside Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey, attended a meeting of G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors on Thursday. They were joined virtually by Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko.
\u201cTheir statement sent a strong message of condemnation for Russia\u2019s war of aggression against Ukraine, announced an increase of financial support for the Ukrainian government to a total of USD 39 billion in 2023 and committed to continue supporting vulnerable countries hardest hit by the economic impact of the war,\u201d the Treasury said.
On Friday, the UK announced a fresh wave of internationally coordinated sanctions and trade measures, to \u201cfurther restrict Russia\u2019s capability to wage war in Ukraine both now and in the future\u201d. At the first G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting under the Indian Presidency, Hunt condemned \u201cRussia\u2019s brutal acts\u201d in the strongest terms, emphasising that securing peace was the most important action for global growth.
According to the UK government, the senior Cabinet minister also underscored the need for bilateral official creditors and private sector to urgently help address low and middle-income country debt vulnerabilities in developing countries.
The minister emphasised the importance of multilateral development banks boosting lending from their existing balance sheets and called on the G20 to fulfil its pledge to channel USD 100 billion of IMF Special Drawing Rights in support of developing countries.
\u201cThe Indian Presidency issued a Chair\u2019s statement at the end of the meeting which highlighted, among other things, the continued need to fight inflation, and the importance of supply-side policies, especially those that increase labour supply, boost growth and alleviate price pressures.
\u201cThere was also G20 consensus, including China, on the need for swift resolution of existing debt restructuring cases and to work on the impacts of food and energy insecurity on the global economy,\u201d the Treasury said.
While in Bengaluru, the UK Chancellor is also said to have had \u201cproductive bilateral meetings\u201d with US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, French Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire and Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He also met with Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers.
While speaking at the meetings, the Chancellor is said to have set out the UK government\u2019s intention to protect the most vulnerable from cost-of-living pressures, whilst maintaining fiscal sustainability with debt falling and not adding to inflationary pressure.
He added that the upcoming Spring Budget of the Rishi Sunak-led government on March 15 will \u201cdrive economic growth, focusing on skills, business and infrastructure investment and research and innovation, as well as reviewing regulations of the UK\u2019s key growth industries\u201d.
Officials on both sides began the seventh round of FTA talks earlier this month, picking up from the sixth round of negotiations conducted in New Delhi in December 2022 with the visit of UK Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch.
Negotiations with the UK started on January 13 last year with an aim to boost bilateral trade and investments.
The bilateral trade between the two countries increased to USD 17.5 billion in 2021-22 compared to USD 13.2 billion in 2020-21. India\u2019s exports stood at USD 10.5 billion in 2021-22, while imports were USD 7 billion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
India and the UK have agreed to make further progress on the ongoing negotiations for a free trade agreement (FTA) and also to swiftly organise the next bilateral Economic and Financial Dialogue soon, the British government has said.India has recently concluded the seventh round of talks with the UK.At the conclusion of UK Chancellor Jeremy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":330927,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[667],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-330854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}